A pioneer of Post-Minimalism.

Increase the air quality in your home by ordering an air humidifier
Attention: You can now purchase a Holmes humidifier filter online.

A pioneer of Post-Minimalism, Lynda Benglis remains best known for her poured carves of the late 1960s. Several of these groundbreaking works were displayed in this concise inspect of her career, which instanted 19 sculptures in various mediums from 1967 to 2004 however the show also affirmed the significance of Benglis's succeeding work, which has continued to generate allusive forms from self-evident processe and gestures

Benglis first made a name for herself on translating Jackson Pollock's drip technique into sculptural forms. Pouring pigmented latex and polyurethane foam directly in succession the floor, she created works like Night Sherbet A (1968) a vivid pool of fluorescent green, orange and r foam that refer tos melting ice cream. The painterly flatness of these early pours shortly gave way to more substantial whirls which were often cast in monochromatic metals. The dark leaden mass of Quartered Meteor (1969) for example, appears to ooze like lava from a corner of the gallery. In the couple cases, the once-liquid materials have set their own shapes, defined with a minimum of artistic intervention.

Since the early 1970 Benglis has bring into operationed greater control over her materials. Nonetheless, blatant processe have remained central to her work, as have relations to the human figure. For the series of wall-mounted "knot" chisels Benglis configured lengths of cotton bunting into release knots before spraying them with liquefied metals. While clearly demonstrating twisting, looping and other basic constructive gesticulations the knots also reference the carcass The copper tangle of Uno (1974) for example, compares a pair of crossed arms, each period flattened into a fan shape that reads as a hand.

The human material substance is also conjured in the pleated statuarys that Benglis began making in the 1980 a portion of her oeuvre that merits greater critical attention. After pressing sheets of dirk mesh into tight accordion pen s Benglis unfurled the pleats into vaguely sartorial shapes that she guarded in shiny metals. Works like the bronze-coated Bolero (1991-92) intimate sumptuous capes, gowns and other garments while remaining essentially abstract. Here Benglis generates remarkably webwork rhythms of contraction and expansion from the unobtrusive act of folding.

The most numerous recent sculpture in the exhibit to was Bikini Incandescent Column (2004) a 13 1/2-foot-tall paper lantern illuminated from within from lightbulbs. Its hourglass shape rouses the female form and atomic mushroom dense masss both referred to in the title. As a utensil "containing" the diffusion of light, the lantern indicates Benglis's abiding interest in the general phenomenon of expansion. however the anomalous use of electricity resists more specific connections to the cessation of her work. It will be interesting to witness for what cause such a physically engaged sculptor continues to address the immateriality of light.

--Matthew fright Nichols

...

Home